British-born disco musician Robin Gibb has died at the London Clinic following a long fight with cancer aged just 62.

Gibb’s musical career began when he formed a family band with brothers Barry and Maurice called the Bee Gees back in 1958.

The band went on to become one of the biggest selling artists of all time with album sales reaching over 200 million worldwide, spanning decades and generations of fans. The Bee Gees had more than 30 UK top 40 hit singles spanning five decades a feat that many aspiring musicians can only dream of.

For several years, Gibb had battled ill health. The Bee Gee cancelled a series of shows after again suffering from abdominal pains. He was found to have cancer of the colon and later also diagnosed with cancer of the liver, and underwent chemotherapy and surgery.

Last month the singer fell into a coma after contracting pneumonia.

According to the BBC, Gibb had regained consciousness and was said to have been making a positive recovery. But his death was announced at 10:30 pm on Sunday.

Tributes for the star have been pouring in since the news broke of his passing. Celebrities and musicians took to twitter to show their sorrow for Gibbs passing.

Justin Timberlake described Gibb as "a truly brilliant musician", adding: "One of my idols. My heart goes out to the Gibb family in this time of sorrow."

Contemporary musician Cliff Richard said "It is hard to put it into words really. I just feel that The Bee Gees have been so much part of our industry. I always feel that we are a fraternity of people who sing pop and rock and Robin is another one of us who has gone too soon, too early.

Friend of Gibb and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, added his condolences saying he would "miss him very much".

"Robin was not only an exceptional and extraordinary musician and songwriter, he was a highly intelligent, interested and committed human being," said Mr Blair.

Besides his contribution to the field of music, Robin was in recent years a leading figure in the campaign to raise a permanent memorial to the Bomber crews of WWII.

Britain’s Got Talent bosses are facing are in a spot of hot water with claims of a fix after hit act Loveable Rogues admitted ITV1 bosses hand-chose them to perform for the judges.

Eddie Brett, Sonny Jay and Té Eugene booked their place in the BGT final after an impressive rendition of their own track Lovesick, but news has since come out that the band were specifically asked to perform for Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams after the production team’s talent scouts spotted their videos online.

Under normal circumstances, acts have to apply and are first slimmed down by producers before being seen by the panel, but the “Rogues” skipped the preliminary auditions and were put straight on the live stage in front of Simon Cowell and the judges

Loveable Rogues are Eddie Brett, Sonny Jay and Té Eugene. Eddie admitted to The Sun: “Yes, we did get approached.”

Co-star Sonny Jay added: “We never really thought about doing shows like this, but obviously an opportunity came along and it would be silly not to.

“We’ve been gigging constantly for 18 months, trying to build up our fanbase and working hard, but a show like this is an incredible platform – within weeks everyone knows who you are.”

Band mate Sonny confessed that the group subsequently skipped several stages of the audition process, avoiding the lengthy queues and pre-auditions endured by other contestants.

He told The Sun: 'The audition in front of the judges was the first we've done.'

The show has always been under scrutiny with evidence suggesting that that the show is manipulated to include the most marketable acts likely to sell scores of albums, and purposely include less talented acts for public ridicule by the audience.

Speaking after their performance on Tuesday's semi-final, Cowell further fuelled suspicion of manipulation by telling the band: “It was brilliant. I know who you should be working with on your first album, I can hear that single already.”

When asked about the allegations, a spokesman for Britain’s Got Talent said: “We let people know about auditions in lots of ways, from ads in local papers to fliers distributed at festivals.

"As part of this normal process, we may inform some acts about the auditions. All acts are auditioned on their own merits and the judges then decide who goes through to the live shows.”

The self deprecating rapper ‘Wretch 32’ has claimed that he and his rapping compadres are modern equivalents of Shakespeare. Whoever said rappers weren’t humble?

In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Wretch 32 stated that he and his contemporaries were the modern day equivalents of arguably the world’s greatest ever wordsmith. To add insult to injury, he also suggested that Jay-Z was on a level with the Bard in terms of lyrical skill.

Though I do enjoy rap and hip hop music, it’s a bit of a jump to compare Wretch32 to the artistic genius that was Mr William Shakespeare.

Let’s just take a quick look at some of Wretch 32’s insightful lyrics:

Let’s compare this to a short extract from Hamlet in which Shakespeare appears to be making a similar point:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, howinfinite in faculties, in form and moving how express andadmirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how likea god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Actually, maybe Wretch 32 has a point...

One of the more enlightening and succinct points made by the rapper was thus: “Shakespeare was an expert at storytelling, coming up with similes and metaphors; he had the ability to be speaking about one thing, while actually referring to something else!”

The English rapper and former Grime MC from Tottenham, London, first rose to fame in 2011 after releasing his debut single "Traktor" from the “black and White” album.

If you’ve got anything further to add, maybe you think Bill Oddie is the modern day equivalent of Charles Darwin, then we’d really love to hear from you. Get in contact on our facebook page @ http://www.facebook.com/Instrumania.

The Stooges man Iggy Pop who is the ambassador for Record Store Day 2012, has come out and said that music today is like "cheap drinks you get in a bad supermarket".

The rocker posted a video on the official Record Store Day site suggesting that modern rockers lack authenticity.

He said: “I think there are some ages, like the one we're living in, when the game is kind of rigged towards products that contain music – sort of like those cheap drinks you get in a bad supermarket where it says, 'Contains 10% juice.'”

He went on to say: "There's a lot of stuff out there with a bit of music to it, and I think that's OK, but it reminds me of how bad it was to turn on American Badstand in the 50s and see all the endless, gutless, dickless imitations of Elvis that the American industry decided to push on the kids."

Iggy Pop’s outburst at contemporary music come just weeks after Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl made a similar comment about the music industry.

Talking to Billboard, the singer said that the poor record sales that the industry is facing are the result of lazy musician's rather than a fundamental lack of interest in music, and noted that he believed that fans would always be willing to buy "great" albums.

With British artist Adele’s '21' announced as the top selling album in the United States for 2011, Grohl said to the publication: "Someone asked me recently, 'What do you think the problem with the music industry is?'

"I said, take the Adele record, for example. It's an amazing record and everybody's so shocked that it's such a phenomenon. I'm not. You know why that record's huge? Because it's fucking good and it's real."

He continued, adding: “Now imagine if all records were that good. Do you think only one of them would sell? Fuck no! All of them would. If all records were that good the music business would be on fire, but they're not.”

With Iggy Pop becoming the latest artist to openly criticise their industry peers, it may seem like a case of sour grapes from artists that are certainly not as popular as they perhaps once were. However, you can't help but agree that there are real signs of truth in what they speak. What are your thoughts on today’s music? We’d love to hear your thoughts on our facebook page @ http://www.facebook.com/Instrumania

Red Hot Chili Peppers have revealed plans to persuade Jimmy Page of legendary rock band Led Zeppelin to join them at their summer shows in their upcoming UK tour.

If you are at all human, after reading that first paragraph I can imagine that your interest has been peaked. It seems that the age-defying rockers, Red Hot Chili Peppers have spoken out about how legendary guitarist Jimmy Page would be their dream guest for their upcoming shows at Knebworth and the Stadium of Light in Sunderland this summer.

Chili’s drummer Chad Smith said "Jimmy Page has come to our shows before but we haven't had a chance to play with him," in an interview with The Daily Star, Chad continued adding: "That would be really cool so maybe that can happen."

Playing the historic venue of Knebworth in Hertfordshire is especially exciting for the band.

Talking about their Knebworth booking, Smith added: "Being a big rock fan, Knebworth is particularly exciting. I first heard about Knebworth when Led Zeppelin played there in 1979, so to me it's hallowed ground and pretty cool that we will be following them."

Whilst it does seem a long shot, Page, now 68 years old, has been known to cameo in big gigs. This hasn’t gone un-noticed with Smith noting: "Maybe we can get Page to come out to Knebworth. I saw him come on with Foo Fighters at Wembley."

The “Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic” band have been on an enforced break after lead singer Anthony Kiedis, now 49, crushed a bone in his foot and had to undergo surgery, but it’s not been all misfortune for the foursome.

Chad added the time off was productive, as he got together with the other band members - guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and bassist Flea - to write new tracks.

He added: ''We just rehearsed and came up with some ideas and new song ideas.